CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It was not a good day for the Jets’ offensive line, the weakest link in the 19-14 loss to the Panthers in the season opener at Bank of America Stadium.
The worst of it was losing starting left tackle Mekhi Becton to a right knee injury in the second half. Early reports have it being a sprained medial collateral ligament.
When Becton was hurt, right tackle George Fant moved to left tackle and Morgan Moses played right tackle. That didn’t help, either. The entire game for the line was a mess.
Rookie quarterback Zach Wilson was running for his life, sacked six times. But that number could have been doubled, with Wilson showing some terrific pocket awareness and scrambling away from numerous other potential sacks.
“There’s a lot of things that are involved in protection,’’ Jets coach Robert Saleh said. “I’m never going to just blame the offensive line, especially when you look at the first half when a lot of those breakdowns happened. There’s route running; there’s the quarterback getting rid of the football; there’s protection, obviously.
“Then, there’s a credit to those guys who won some one-on-ones and did some things schematically that were pretty darn good. At the end of the day, the protection’s got to hold up. But it’s a collective effort, not just solely on the offensive line.’’
The worst of the hits on Wilson came in the fourth quarter when Derrick Brown, the Panthers 320-pound defensive lineman hit him like a missile.
Panthers coach Matt Rhule said he was “surprised’’ Wilson got up from that hit.
Wilson, it should be noted, hadn’t been sacked or even hit in preseason.
“It’s tough, but it’s part of the job,’’ Wilson said. “I feel like I’m getting better experiencing having stuff in your face. You’ve got to be able to play. It’s part of the quarterback position. You can’t just say, ‘Oh, there’s pressure, I can’t do my job.’ That’s why quarterback is a tough position to come by.’ ’’
Wilson said his “neck’s a little sore’’ from the Brown hit.
“A little whiplash, but I’ll be all right,’’ he said.
Jets center Connor McGovern talked afterward about this being “early in the season,’’ as if to say not to panic.
“Especially with a young quarterback, they’re going to heat you up,’’ McGovern said of the Panthers blitzing a lot in the game. “It’s nothing we didn’t prepare for, but when a team’s blitzing you every snap, it might be a little softer than normal. It’s kind of what we expected and what we prepared for. We just need to execute better.
“We didn’t execute as well as we should have. Our goal every game is to rush for 200 yards or more. We obviously didn’t get that done [they rushed for 45 yards]. It just comes to again execution. We’re a young team. I know everybody in that locker room is eager to get back to practice and clean that stuff up.’’